BY RODOLFO ROSALES
Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship recipients have formed a community in which we can share the products of our knowledge, our talents, our research, and our work in the arts, humanities, and sciences—along with many other intellectual accomplishments across the disciplines that have been significant in establishing our footprint in the history of humankind. Through this community, we have broken through barriers to the advancement of society in medicine, science, industry; and we have created and continue to create paths to the future for a more humane and just society for all. I was the recipient of a predoctoral fellowship in the late 1970s and a postdoctoral fellowship in the early 1990s. Like other past fellows, I found it shocking when the Ford Foundation governing board decided to end the diversity fellowship program for aspiring doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers — a program that has been available to students of color for the past five decades. Our concern is not that we would no longer have access to this community of scholars; we have already accomplished what the diversity program has provided in the community of support built by its participants. No, we are shocked because the impact that this program set out to have has barely begun. Academia is still a rarified space. If we expect to change not only the academy but also the broader society—to reflect all Americans and the talents they have to offer—this program still has a lot of work to do. By focusing on our success in academic endeavors, the Ford Foundation has helped to empower generations of intellectuals who are making a difference in a profession that for too long completely excluded scholars of color or accepted them as exotic.
An added and unexpected benefit of the program is that we have found a place where, through our collective intellectual accomplishments, we can and do address issues that are critical in and beyond our own communities—and, in many ways, for the planet that we all share. The Ford Foundation Fellowship has provided a space where we develop and share scholarship, inform each other, and engage in intense debate—without demanding agreement—to set a far-reaching agenda not only for academic engagement and participation but also for the larger goal of contributing to the betterment of society. This direction for intellectual and research production continues after we have served and completed our respective fellowships.
Ford Fellows in the sciences share their research and findings with each other and the general population through reports and practical applications. In the social sciences, Ford Fellows are advancing important questions and theories on virtually all aspects of society, including on race, class, gender, and, of course, on community and polity, within and across local, national, and international contexts. Similarly, in education, the arts, and humanities, fellows address critical issues for knowledge production and its broader impact. This work represents research and resources that are available for activists and others who come with creative ideas for our communities. So, while we have made and continue to make important inroads in the face of daunting and enduring obstacles and challenges, we are still on the edge of innovation! The impact of the fellowship program on academia is relatively minute in the context of the academy’s aspirations for greater inclusion of scholars of color, and so much remains to be done. However, even now, the program’s real and tangible impact is in the contributions of fellows to society in general.
Must we be reminded that, in a market economy with no historical memory, even worthy initiatives like this one and so many other progressive efforts can be easily abandoned in our diverse, competitive society? I am referring, for example, to the civil rights movement’s history from the radical Reconstruction era after the end of the Civil War to civil rights and voting rights gains in the 1960s that seemed invincible—and yet we find these guarantees being challenged and overridden. To the struggle by and for women to define and claim rights based on their community perspectives and needs—and yet we saw the US Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturn Roe v. Wade. To the struggle for the civil rights of the LGBTQ community, including same-sex marriage—and yet we see those rights being challenged. We also must not forget, as part of this nation’s history of backsliding, all the treaties with our Indigenous sisters and brothers, followed by actions calculated to take away their lands, undermine their self-determination, and continually dare to define who is an “Indian” and who is not.
It is important to note that, in the profoundly chaotic and unequal reality of the United States, we are in an intense democratic battle, not only to make a better society, but to defend the democratic process itself. The bigger picture must include continued support for the kind of socially relevant research and scholarly work that Ford Fellows have contributed. By taking their eyes off the big picture, Ford Foundation governing board members risk flushing the foundation’s past efforts down the drain. The idea that the Ford Foundation is now “re-focusing” its impact by shifting away from supporting a diversity program in the academic world to supporting underfunded social and racial justice initiatives is profoundly missing the bigger picture.
My argument here is that work in social and racial justice is intimately connected to and undergirded by a program that provides critical intellectual production—which the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship has supported and enhanced—related to ongoing social and racial justice work in our communities. In conclusion, the answer to “For Whom the University?” is obvious, as it should be to Ford Foundation decision-makers today.
Rodolfo Rosales is a writer and activist who received a Ford Foundation predoctoral fellowship in 1975–8 and a postdoctoral fellowship in 1992–93.
